Timo McIntosh Arts

First Racking

I took a wild guess, and racked my one gallon of Viozinho this morning. As you can see it isn’t very clear at this point, but the smaller jug was very clear before I messed with it. It’s a little on the brown side, too but I’m not too concerned with that right now. All in all the wine itself looks to be proceded in a predictable way… well not predictable to me, but what I imagine would be to a professional. The process on the other hand, as usual has not been wonderful.

About a week ago, I was reaching for a book neer the bottle, and as you might guess it fell it the weirdest and most Murphyesque way, bouncing two feet around a chair right on top of the the air locks. One shattered, and the other went flying across the room. The bottles and wine were safe, fortunately.

After checking two local brew shops, who “for some strange reason” were completely sold out of the cheapest most abundant part of home brewing, I finally found one at a crazy price in a wine makers shop. Not a good sign for Timo’s home brew wine.

Flash forward to this morning and Murphy was still dictating the direction of things. Starting the siphon on such a small container was much less than smooth. I had practiced with water for about 20 minutes and thought I had it down pat, but alas there were a lot cuss words flying as my precious wine spilled all over the place and my hand came in contact with all the equipment. I even had an extra set of hands, but it didn’t help. I seem to have an aversion to smoothness when it comes to making fermented beverages (Don’t ask about the other night of beer bottling! I must have said, “That’s never happened before” about ten times.)

Anyway, I did pull off a little for a taste. I was expecting something horrid, akin to the plum wine I made a couple of years ago. That wine had so much acid in it, and so little sugar entering fermentation (I miss calculated the recipe) that the bottle I opened last month didn’t even pass as a good vinegar. This true wine was not vinegar, though. It actually had a pretty good feel considering I’ve never tried Viozinho, nor have any idea what a wine at the first racking is supposed to taste like. It wasn’t even a struggle to swallow.

I kept the stems with the berries when I crushed it, which isn’t normal for a white wine, but as I have mentioned before, I have no idea what I am doing. Some of that carried through as a sour tannic note. It actually tasted like a young intense Chardonay in a lot of ways. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t very good, but if it ages well, it will pass as wine.

I have been thinking of adding 3 or 4 more vines in the back yard. My first choice was a classic red, like Cabernet, or Syrah. Maybe even a Durif, After tasting the potential of what I already have, though, now am I am considering upping the anti. I may make this whole project even more complicated (the way I like it,) and try my hand at cloning the Viozinho onto a resistant rootstock, so I would have 5 vines all with the same varietal.

Of course I haven’t found a source of rootstock, and have never grafted vines before. But, I watched a couple of videos on Youtube, so how hard could it be, right?